October 22, 2020 – MxD has been awarded $15 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to address critical public health and infrastructure needs and to support manufacturing as it mobilizes in response to COVID-19.
MxD’s three CARES Act-funded programs will focus on supply chain resiliency and transparency, rapid and secure medical device deployment, and pharmaceutical industry production optimization.
Even before the pandemic temporarily closed factories and exposed supply chain shortcomings, American manufacturers were experiencing rapid change on all fronts: ecosystems, business models, technology, customer expectations, and workforce. Companies, some of them more than a century old, have been under pressure for years to transform and become more resilient – or face extinction. Newer entrants have used digital technology to become more agile and leap-frog competitors.
And in the current environment, all of manufacturing has come to grips with the fact that better planning is needed for future crises.
“We did not have a pandemic in mind as we built our expertise and strategy – but with our focus on supply chain and cybersecurity issues, MxD was made for this moment, ” said MxD CEO Chandra Brown. “Our programs support both immediate and long-term efforts to address critical shortages, develop capacity for response among manufacturers, and secure the industry during these unprecedented times.”
Supply Chain Risk Alert for Wearables
To modernize manufacturing for critical items such as medical device parts, a secure, robust, and connected supply chain is essential. A key challenge across supply chains is the secure sharing of data, including performance specifications, factory operations data, or business contracts. MxD will deliver a supply chain risk alert framework tool to help the Department of Defense and the U.S. manufacturing industry map existing supply chains to identify vulnerabilities, foreign dependencies, and single source suppliers; and identify alternate or indirect suppliers. It also will have the capability to analyze public data and determine future potential disruptions in supply chains. This tool will enable manufacturers to make data-informed decisions in times of crisis or urgency and minimize impact on production capabilities.
Rapid and Secure Deployment of Medical Devices
Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, has introduced novel ways to manufacture medical device components needed for the COVID-19 response, but the innovation outpaces capacity for review. Many solutions cannot be implemented because of long lead times for approval and validation. MxD is developing a digital process to proactively connect the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the medical industry to expedite validation for products during fabrication. This would create a standard digital pathway for material testing, approval, and validation of the process or part being produced and would enable digital plans for additive manufacturing to be shared across the industrial base.
Capacity and Mobilization Assessment of Pharmaceutical Industry
MxD will provide lessons learned, best practices, and digital tools for manufacturers to accelerate use of digital technologies to scale or flex production, increase resiliency, and strengthen their supply chains – all while maintaining the highest and necessary levels of cybersecurity. This builds upon work with the FDA Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threat. The assessment will identify the perceived and real barriers to implementing digital technologies that could increase U.S. manufacturing capacity and decrease time to market for medical diagnostics, therapies, and vaccines needed for public health emergency response.
Information on MxD’s response to COVID-19 can be found at mxdusa.org/covid-19.
About MxD
MxD, the nation’s digital manufacturing institute, is where innovative manufacturers go to forge their futures. In partnership with the Department of Defense, MxD equips U.S. factories with the digital tools, cybersecurity, and workforce expertise they need to begin building every part better than the last. As a result, our approximately 300 partners increase their productivity and win more business.